January 25, 2010

American Apparel Has NOT Been Recalled

Someone wrote an anonymous comment on my American Apparel post about the new line being recalled sometime last week. I couldn't find any information to support the assertion, so I chose not to publish the comment. I have since started to hear more rumblings about this but I couldn't find any information that seemed reliable. I decided to go straight to the company and ask them for the truth.

Here is American Apparel's email response.

Hey April,

Really strange about the comment and thank you for letting us know. The response to the nail lacquer completely exceeded our expectations and we sold out of the initial run almost immediately. We weren't totally pleased with some of the packaging and we worked with the manufacturer to make improvements last week. They should all be back in all the US and Canadian stores within the next week and half. It's all being bottled as we speak, but that's the reason you can't get them right now.

I'll send you some new samples when they arrive at the factory. There will be almost no discernible difference to an outsider but we obsess about quality. It's actually the reason we make all our products in the USA - so we can monitor it like this and make changes on the fly.

Thanks!Nichole

PS: Same address?

Nichole has asked that I not post her contact information because she is not the company's official PR rep. She says she will be happy to answer any questions from my readers though!

So they have NOT been recalled. Instead they sold out of the initial production. My guess would be that they are changing the bottle a bit since some were breaking in transit.

Please pass this info along to your readers if you think they might be interested.

Thanks for reading!April

Update: American Apparel also has this to say in response to the article on Jezebel this morning.

On another note, one thing we're taking very seriously is the disposal of the bottles we had in the stores. Even though our polish was DBP, toluene, and formaldehyde-free, we don't want our stores just tossing it in the trash. We're using our internal shipping and distribution line to arrange a pickup and removal of the polish to make sure it gets done right.

5 comments:

Thanks for the info April! I love your blog and your approach to color.

I had a question about the AA nail lacquers. I was excited to read in the press release that the polishes are manufactured in NYC by a company that's been around since the 70s.

I live in NYC and I'm a huge fan of mom and pop businesses (as well as keeping as many fashion manufacturers in NYC as possible as a way to prevent sweat shop labor) but for the life of me, I can't find a record of ANY nail polish manufacturers within the city limits, let alone one with a 91 year old grandma bottling the polish.

I would love to hear more about the unique manufacturer you found. Could you share a little bit more information with us?

Thanks for the post April!(Sorry, my comment got deleted when I tried to log in with my LiveJournal account so I am posting anonymously.)

I was so excited to hear that the new AA lacquers are mad in NYC. As a NYC resident I was thrilled and hoped to find out more about the company with the 91 year old grandma, but I couldn't find any information online. I was hoping you could tell us more about the company that is manufacturing the nail polish.

The review post you did with these looks great, a local friend of mine picked some up recently and posted them. I rarely ever wear nail polish, but it's nice to hear that AA is trying to provide a made in the USA alternative that's free of a lot of the nasty chemicals found in so many nail polish brands. (Which is a big reason I rarely use the stuff.)